[Rift] What next at level 50?

Note 2: For all the people searching for “Blizzard at E3,” you are wasting your time, they aren’t there. They only do Blizzcon.

Hurrah, my mage reached level 50 at least. I queued up immediately for the level 50-only warfront (Port Scion) which I hadn’t seen before. As you can see from the screenshot, it’s set in a city and the Defiants occasionally launch strike forces.

OK, I admit, I don’t have a clue what was going on in that warfront. There is a bridge that one side or the other can hold and there are quests that you can do and hand in but I was mostly just following people around and trying to figure the whole thing out. (We lost this one, incidentally but probably not coincidentally.)

Here is us riding through the streets on the way to … somewhere. As I say, I honestly do not have a clue what was going on in this warfront. But it seemed fun enough and city fighting is always cool.

Other than that, I’m trying to figure out what to do next. I’m saving up gold to pay for a faster horse, and there are various factions that you can earn rep with by doing daily quests. There are instances, which have expert and more expert difficulties (T1 and T2). Apparently my gear is good enough that the dungeon finder will allow me to queue for T1 but I don’t have the nerve to actually do it, I don’t know if the warlock spec that I like so much will live up to people’s dps expectations, and definitely not with my healing second spec in case people shout at me if I can’t keep them all alive.

(I think I may be being guided by experiences in WoW where it’s not fun to go into heroics as a newbie if you don’t know them.)

There are such things as expert rifts and crafting rifts, and a questgiver in Meridian gave me a lure for one of the expert ones (I think) so will be trying to follow that up with my guild later this week.

PvP is another option, and you can earn points which you can turn in for PvP gear — although most of it doesn’t seem to have specifically PvP stats other than a bit more endurance than usual. Or maybe I’m looking at the wrong vendor, there seem to be a lot.

I can’t really do much with crafting because the highest tier of materials are either rare drops or unavailable outside said expert instances and crafting rifts.

So unless this picks up or I somehow get up the nerve to try expert dungeons, I can see myself spending less time with this game. At least on this alt. I’d like to be keener because I do really like the game, but would it have killed them to make it possible to max out crafting without doing expert dungeons?

To my understanding there’s no Recount or /vote kick in RIFT, so you’ll have plenty of chances to learn how play your roll with some impunity Spinks. If you’re not standing in fires, pulling Leeroys, CC’ing where inappropriate (or lack there of) and/or being an obnoxious bigot, I think you’ll be fine.🙂

You have to be an inept tank or healer to get that tho. In most dungeons if you play DPS, and you keep on dying you won’t get kicked… just laughed at.

Since you are a warlock build, check over at rift.zam.com for builds. The warlock/necro build is a very popular build. Anything with a huge AoE DPS, is very helpful to have.

eT1s, are just 5 man dungeons, think of them as random PUGs. You learn as you go, but eT1s are very easy. Use this to build up your gear for eT2s.

Don’t waste your money on a 110% mount. Unless you are on a PvP server, you won’t really need it. A 90% mount, is more then enough.

I tried to do PvP, with a level 50 Rogue… sadly I was really bad at it. On the other hand, I got in there at level 21, with my warrior and found myself to be a ton better. I think having started at low levels in PvP, has allowed me to do much better. Now my warrior is level 42 and still does PvP via warfronts.

Valor is the stat which helps in PvP. Damage mitigation from other players.

You can max out your crafting without doing crafting rifts. You just can’t get the good recipes.

What else to do… collect artifacts (special surprise when you get 100 collections). Do puzzles (without looking up the solutions), crafting, eT1s, eT2s, RT1s… At level 50, start getting your rank going. There are 6 levels – should take about 1.5-3 weeks (depending on hours per day spent). Run rift groups – Shimmersand is a great place to do it. Level your Notoriety (reputation) with different in-game factions, level a new toon. Make new builds and explore their capabilities. Do daily quests…

There is a vote-kick option, but I’ve never seen it used. Well, I’ve seen it threatened in the one truly awful PuG run (out of dozens) that I’ve done. I’ve really had no problem with first runs in most expert dungeons, and found that other players (at least Guardian/Steampike ones) are happy to give a quick rundown of tactics if you let them know you’re new to this boss (or new to it on Expert – some of them have extra abilities on top of their normal versions). Queue as DPS, be ready to swap to your healing spec for specific fights if the main healer wants some help, don’t stand in the glowy crap and you’ll be an asset to a T1 group.

All of the crafting materials can be traded or bought at the AH – my own main crafter is level 50 but has never been n an Expert dungeon, I buy the Minor Catalysts off the AH and pass the cost on to my customers🙂

As for Port Scion – it can be confusing, but think of it as a mini Alterac Valley. You win either by killing the enemy commander (which I’ve never seen done) or by earning points either from killing the Endless Court NPCs or picking up the sourcestones and carrying them back to your commander. The bridge is an extra respawn point that’s close to where the sourcestones are found, so holding it gives an advantage… but I’ve won games where the enemy held the bridge the entire time. Some players get overly focused on the bridge, which is a means to an end and not the end itself🙂

I have yet to hit 50 but endgame content does worry me as I don’t want another WoW grind. I switched sides early on so I have a Mathosian Rogue sat at level 30 and now have a 23 Eth mage, 24 Bahmi Cleric, a 9 Eth Warrior and a new 6 Kelari Rogue. The problem is that a lot of the souls are major fun. I created the Kelari on a whim but Marksman is great fun especially coupled with Saboteur and Ranger. Everytime I try something new I want to play that but am really trying to focus on my Bahmi now so I can finally get to the end of levelling and see more of the game. Doing over Freemarch again might send me mad.

Well that truly sucks. /Vote kick is one horribley negative aspect of WoW that should be round filed instead of copied. Glad to hear players are not taking liberties with it though. Perhaps RIFT is attracting a better crowd.

IIRC Rift vote kick is disabled for the first fifteen minutes of a group, which encourages players to get the instance underway and see if the group actually can do the dungeon, rather than an instant “ur gear suxx, lol” and kick. Not sure whether WoW has the same restriction – I left that ship back in the BC days, before the Dungeon Finder first appeared.

Sadly, I burned through RIFT content so fast my fingers started searing. I loved the leveling process, the zones, the classes, etc., so much that I rolled 2 level 50 toons in 2 months. Then, started raiding and doing the dungeon grind. I quit two weeks later.

You would think that in today’s world, you would find MMO developers that could be more though into their game than repeating some other game’s level/dungeon/raid grind, but that’s exactly what Trion did. Copied it to a “t”. Good luck with your adventures, but if you’re looking for more than that, Rift doesn’t have much to offer (and the PvP is especially lackluster).

If you’re only selling rares for 1-5 plat each, you are on the slow wagon. On my server, they now go for an average of 10-20 plat, with some even going for 30-50 plat. The only ones which are selling for 1-5 plat, are the invasions ones.

Crafting rifts aren’t hard, but the quest that gives a lure is only once per week. The best way to do crafting rifts is to team up with others who have lures and knock a bunch of them out at once.

But yeah, Rift limits what solo or non-raiding crafters can accomplish, since as someone mentioned, of course the best recipes only drop in raids.

After getting my 110% mount I lost enthusiasm for the game. I don’t like to repeat things, and of course MMOs at endgame are all about repeating things: dailies, instances, and raids. I’m not a raider anyways: there’s too much waiting around and dependence on others for my tastes.

I rolled on a PvP server, but I don’t like the lack of world objectives to make PvP meaningful instead of pointless ganking.

Since I’m looking forward to Guild Wars 2 so much I’ve gone back to Guild Wars, which I only started about a year ago so I’ve lots to do yet for the Hall of Monuments. It’s also the game with the most to do after you reach the level cap (of course the level cap being so low helps there).

Wow, thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I really should be less of a wimp and try T1 instances, shouldn’t I?

We actually won a battle of port scion today in a warfront I was in. I still don’t really get that place, but I still think it’s fun (maybe it’s fun because I don’t quite get it?🙂 )

Oh, and I bought the fast horse. I have no idea where the money came from, although I sold a fair amount of ore. For those who are interested, my professions are outfitter, miner, and butcher. And I can see how levelling outfitter is entirely doable too.

Why don’t you try queuing for normal AP and CC. The rep is very useful later and you’ll get a chance to try things out and experiment in a group that will just be glad you’re a 50.

A couple of other things:

– you don’t have to heal but you really should be able to ress. You might be the only one able to Soul Walk after a wipe. By the same token if someone else is ressing save your Soul Walk.

– the damage meter I use is called ACT. While rubbing other people’s nose in how leet you are is horrible it is very nice to be able to monitor yourself. For instance I was doing a tough raid the other night and was a bit worried that I was under-performing. A look at the numbers showed that the weakness was elsewhere. It can be quite a relief to be able to check that.

– acceptable dps is about 400+. Some people will say more but they have forgotten how much they were doing at 50 in blues.

– a little pvp goes a long way. It’s very easy to grind to rank 2 and you should be able to buy a couple of nice epics. My epic rings, bought the day I hit 50, only got superseded this weekend, about 2 months after I hit 50.

– everyone is welcome at pug raid rifts and pug raids on the two outdoor bosses Krevic and Akala. No one will care if your dps is a little low. Doing the quest for Krevic gives you very nice epic trousers. If you see people rep grinding Order of Mathos rep, pick up the quest for Krevic and join them, they’ll probably kill him for you while rep grinding if you ask nicely.

If I want to res, then I need 20 points in Chloromancer, at which point you might as well heal really because it isn’t going to be a damage spec?

I’m not sure about it being quick to get to rank 2, I think I’ve done at least 10 warfronts and I’m only about 1/4 of the way. Now assuming I don’t really want to run more than 4 or so a night — and will prolly get bored after a couple — that’s going to be a couple of weeks away. (Because I won’t be playing every night.)

(I’m noting this because even though I know it’ll come across as a slacker attitude, I actually have no issues with raiding or expert instances and would probably like them. But I really have no interest in grinding ANYTHING just in order to do it.)

You don’t need the rez on your main role – just have it available on one of your roles. My normal DPS roles as a cleric can’t rez, but after a wipe if it’s my turn I swap to healer role, get everyone back on their feet then go back to my shaman or inquisitor role.

As an aside – I got rank 2 in under a week, doing 3 warfronts per night. Make sure you pick up the PvP daily, that awards 1200 prestige each time (out of the 45000 needed for rank 2). Also, Port Scion is a great prestige mill – all of those people throwing themselves into the sausage grinder at the Bridge results in a constant stream of kills.

As Tremayne says if you don’t want to heal just spec down to the ress and the combat ress. It’s simply so you can roleswitch after soul walking and get the party up. Take both because one casts instantly but has a cooldown, makes getting everyone up quicker.

Fair point regarding grinding. I didn’t notice the grind at all because I like warfronts anyway. Rank 2 just kinda happened without me noticing as I was making different specs then taking them out for test drives in warfronts.

At lvl 50, PvP is a bloody bloody grind. I got to Rank 2 and it took an age, and the gear upgrade was a little poorly. Glad you got your mount, because it’s handy for getting back into the action for Scion and for a couple of the other WFs.
If you haven’t worked out Scion yet, either hold the flag on the bridge, or do the shard run from the church back to your base, and it doesn’t hurt to keep doing the daily quests in Scion.

Other things to do at lvl50. The dailies in Shimmersand will help with the Dragon rep grind. But you may max out on that doing the instances. On my first toon through, I neglected to do any instances at all. By the time I got to lvl 50, I was shit scared of doing any instances, let alone the experts. That was on a Cleric. I’ve rerolled a Mage, and I’m making a point to do an many instances, at level, as I can. Luckily, this was just as the LFG tool was introduced, so joining a group as DPS (or support! yay!) was a good way to learn the dungeons.

Then there’s raiding. Well, I’ve done one out door raid (Herald), and that’s about it, but I’m not really the raiding type, so I can’t help on that front. Unless they do something better about the amount of AFK leaching that happens in WFs, the point of RIFT at 50 is raiding, whether that be rifts or instances. I joined for the story and the PvP via WFs, and they’ve got about 4 months or so make whatever improvements need to be made, before I make a decision about my on going subscription.